In 2013 Australia had not only its hottest year on record, but also the hottest day, month, spring, and summer since they began keeping records there in 1910. Research from this year claims these records would have been practically impossible without human-driven climate change due to greenhouse gasses.

The heat waves were incredible, with the national average temperature exceeding 39C (102.2F) for a record seven days in a row in January. That is just the national average, the mercury rose as high as 49.6C (121.3F) in Southern Australia last year, the hottest day on record there since 1998.

According to the Australian government’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), frequent stretches of warm days experienced throughout the country created such a high overall average for the year.

High surface temperatures in the surrounding oceans also contributed to the warmer temperatures, with sea surface temperatures at 0.51 degrees Celsius above the long-term average. Sea surface temperatures in the Australian area have not been below this long-term average since 1994.

“The Australian region warming is very similar to that seen at the global scale and the past year emphasizes that the warming trend continues,” says the BOM. “Recent warming trends have been dominated by the influence of increasing greenhouse gases and the enhanced greenhouse effect.”

Some studies estimate that the presence of human-driven greenhouse gasses made last year’s record temperatures up to 2,000 times more likely. To get these numbers, researchers go back as far as 1950 and run different weather models up to the present, based on collected weather data with varying amounts of human influenced greenhouse gasses. This allows them to study different versions of what our theoretical weather history could have been with differing amounts of these gasses in the atmosphere.

Thus far, four separate studies like this have come to the same conclusion: the record numbers in Australia would have been “virtually impossible” without human-driven climate change.

The BOM has estimated Australia could warm by up to five degrees Celsius if current emissions are not cut back.